TwinsUK: A longitudinal epidemiological and genomic resource

TwinsUK是一项调查健康、老龄化和环境影响的大型研究。双胞胎是健康研究的理想参与者，因为他们有相同的DNA：同卵双胞胎100%相同，而异卵双胞胎只有50%相同。这意味着我们可以对同卵双胞胎和异卵双胞胎进行比较，以了解基因和环境对健康和衰老的影响——即“先天和后天”。此外，通过研究双胞胎一生发展过程中的变化，双胞胎研究在研究我们的内部和外部环境如何影响衰老和健康方面具有独特的地位。当前，我们的世界正在经历重大环境变化，我们正在努力应对COVID-19大流行、气候变化（以及应对气候变化的措施）和经济不稳定等重大变化。在我们的身体内部，这些可能会影响我们的DNA如何使用，通过整个身体功能和疾病的发作。在英国，很少有研究能够深度捕获所有这些水平，纵向测量，或者独特的双胞胎设计来帮助分离遗传密码本身的影响。因此，我们的研究为世界各地的科学家提供了丰富而独特的资源，以了解所有这些因素的相互作用，正如我们广泛的合作和数据共享所示。我们在1992年成立了TwinsUK，来自英国各地的16,000对成年双胞胎自愿参加（目前有超过10,000对双胞胎积极参与）。我们收集了大量的基因组、健康、生活方式和环境数据，以及30年来参与者在多个时间点的血液和粪便等生物样本。我们从反馈调查中得知，TwinsUK参与者为自己是双胞胎而感到自豪，并为能够为研究做出独特贡献而感到自豪。这导致他们表现出长期的承诺，高度参与，回忆和自愿参加密集的研究。因此，我们的双胞胎参与者是对健康研究非常重要和有价值的长期贡献者。管理TwinsUK，包括维护我们的数据和样本收集，需要许多人在我们的行政、临床、数据和参与团队以及学术研究人员中共同努力。有了这笔拨款，我们希望保持我们非常成功的科学资源：80%的基础设施资金将用于维持和分享资源的基本工作人员工资。我们的目标是继续成为双胞胎队列，为世界上的科学家提供最全面的数据。为了从双胞胎捐赠的数据和样本中获得最大的科学效益，我们安全地与科学界分享我们的研究数据，显然确保了保密性，从不分享姓名或地址。我们提供无与伦比的数据和样本共享：我们已经与1800多名研究人员共享数据和样本，该资源已经产生了1000多份科学出版物。这确保了我们最大限度地利用双胞胎的贡献，并使我们能够为全世界更多的健康研究做出贡献。在接下来的五年里，我们计划通过进一步的数据共享合作来增强资源。根据MRC关于“最大化生物医学数据科学机会”的审查，我们不断努力提高数据的可见性、可发现性、可访问性和及时性。此外，这项LPS奖的核心基础设施将通过资助申请推动进一步的科学研究，并允许TwinsUK回答重要问题，例如通过饮食和生活方式研究我们可持续健康的未来，以应对重要的全球挑战。因此，这项LPS资助将提高TwinsUK的科学价值，并使我们能够为整个生命过程的研究提供具有巨大潜力的独特的国际合作资源。

TwinsUK is a large research study investigating health and ageing and the impact of the environment. Twins are ideal participants in health research because they share DNA: identical twins share 100% of their DNA, while non-identical twins share 50%. This means we can make comparisons between identical and non-identical twins to understand the influence of genetics and the environment on health and ageing - i.e., 'nature and nurture'. Moreover, by studying changes in twin pairs as they develop through life, twin studies have a unique place in studying how our internal and external environments shape ageing and health.Right now, our world is undergoing significant changes in environment as we grapple with major shifts, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change (and measures to combat it), and economic instability. Inside our bodies, these may have impact right from how our DNA is used, through to whole body function and onset of disease. Few studies in the UK have the depth of capture of all these levels, measured longitudinally, or the unique twin design to help separate the influence of the genetic code itself. Our study therefore provides a rich and unique resource to scientists across the world to understand the interplay of all these factors, as shown by our extensive collaboration and data sharing. We set up TwinsUK in 1992, and 16,000 adult twins from across the UK have volunteered to take part (currently over 10,000 twins actively participate). We have collected extensive genomic, health, lifestyle and environmental data and biological samples such as blood and stool from participants at multiple time points over the 30 years. We know from feedback surveys that TwinsUK participants are proud to be twins and proud to be able to contribute uniquely to research as a result. This has led them to demonstrate long-term commitment, be highly engaged, recallable and volunteer willingly for intensive studies. Our twin participants are therefore very important and valuable long-term contributors to health research.Managing TwinsUK, including maintaining our data and sample collections, requires many people working together across our administrative, clinical, data and engagement teams, as well as academic researchers. With this grant, we hope to maintain our highly successful scientific resource: 80% of the requested infrastructure funds will continue essential staff salaries in maintaining and sharing the resource. We aim to continue to be the twin cohort with the most comprehensive data available to scientists to use in the world. In order to get the most scientific benefit out of our twins' donated data and samples, we securely share our research data with the scientific community, obviously ensuring confidentiality and never share names or addresses. We offer an unrivalled access to sharing both data and samples: we have shared data & samples with more than 1,800 researchers, and the resource has produced over 1,000 scientific publications. This ensures we make the most out of our twins' contributions and enables us to contribute to more health research all over the world.In the next five years we plan to enhance the resource with further data sharing collaborations. In line with the MRC review on "maximising biomedical data science opportunities", we continuously strive to increase visibility, discoverability, accessibility, and timeliness of our data. In addition, the core infrastructure of this LPS award will enable further scientific research through grant applications and allow TwinsUK to answer important questions, such as the future of our sustainable health through diet and lifestyle studies to address important global challenges. This LPS grant will therefore both enhance the scientific value of TwinsUK and enable us to provide a unique international collaborative resource with huge potential for research across the life-course.